Navigating the Tech Ladder with Erick Dimalanta | Episode 006

Episode Information Show Notes Join us as we dive into the tech career journey of Erick Dimalanta, from video game enthusiast to senior systems engineer. Discover how passion, continuous learning, and community involvement can propel your IT career to new heights. Show Notes: Erick’s gaming roots and transition to IT Breaking into enterprise IT at Wynn Las Vegas The importance of showing initiative in tech roles Specializing in VMware and creating a home lab Leveraging VMUG for problem-solving and networking Starting a tech blog and its unexpected impact Strategies for career progression in IT Navigating workplace dynamics and office politics The jump from systems engineer to senior role Following opportunities and knowing when to move on Key Takeaways: Continuous learning is crucial in the fast-paced tech industry Community involvement can accelerate career growth and problem-solving Documenting your journey benefits both you and others in the field Featured in this episode: Erick Dimalanta Resources mentioned: VMware User Group (VMUG) A+ Certification Cisco UCS Join our community on the social platforms: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend who’s navigating their tech career! #TechCareers #ITJourney #CareerGrowth #VMware #NetworkingTips #ContinuousLearning #CareerDownloads #CareerAdvice #TechCareers #SystemEngineering #CareerDevelopment #TechIndustry #PersonalGrowth #SkillAcquisition Transcription Manuel: So, welcome everybody to another episode of Career Downloads. Today’s episode, I have Erick Dimalanta with us today, and he’s going to be talking and sharing some of his experiences, kind of his, the way that he’s navigated his career. So really, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you can do me a favor and just go ahead and follow us on all the socials, do all the stuff that you need to do to make sure that you’re notified, really help us grow the channel and then interact with us on the social platforms to help us understand, you know, what type of content that you’re looking for, right, what types of roles, what type of people you want on here, so it’d be really beneficial. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge. So thank you, Erick. Erick: Yeah. No, thank you for having me. Manuel: No, I appreciate it. And I’m really excited. So I know that we know each other. We’ve never actually worked together. We’ve met together a few times through a user group. Erick: Yep. Through the VMUG, yeah. Manuel: Through the VMUG. That’s the topic that I definitely want to get into and just kind of give your thoughts on, you know, those types of groups. Erick: Yeah. Manuel: And as we get started, again, nothing too in-depth, but if you can just kind of give me a brief summary of kind of your background, you know, kind of where you grew up and then slowly how you decided, you know, if you were always into tech or what kind of got you into, you know, exploring technology. Erick: Yeah. Yeah, no. Sure. Happy to do it. So, I mean, I’m not sure how far we want to kind of dial it back, but essentially I’ve always been that kind of video game nerd. I’ve always just, I mean, once I had a controller in my hand, me against my brother playing Street Fighter, anything like that, it was just this is, you know, growing up in that era, this is something that really resonated and stuck with me. So I proceeded to go through life. I lived in a few places. My father was in the military, so we moved around a little bit, lived in Hawaii, California, now here. And when I was here, you know, I started going to high school and during that time, you try to figure out and navigate kind of who you are, what you want to do, and, you know, there’s all those career fairs and things that try to set you up, but you never really know. At that time, still a big nerd, right? Like I still, as the biggest video game nerd, always hung out with like certain groups of people in school in that zone. Well, from that, you know, I finished high school, go a little bit of college route, meet my wife there, but I ended up landing a job at GameStop. And it was just interesting. I was like, I had a buddy who worked there, and he’s like, hey man, you should, you know, where we’re hiring, did you need a job? And prior to that, I was working at a casino at the Mirage as a mini bar technician. And so I left that, I decided to jump into GameStop, I’m like, man, I love video games, this is it. And now I get to sell it, now I get to tell people why they’re wrong, on what video games are good and what’s not. And you know, from just working there, I shot up pretty quick during my tenure there, I was pretty decent at, I guess like just retail sales. And I was promoted into like they had like a key holder and then ultimately a store manager. And it was interesting because, you know, I’d get on forecast calls every week talking about sales, I’d be responsible for hiring, and firing people, and I was a young guy at that time, so I didn’t really know what was going on. So it was all new to me. I’ve moved through different stores. But anyway, while I was there, I was like, you know what, this is, I’m not sure if I like this. You know, when people say their job’s hard, it sucks working like a Black Friday for retail because it’s tough dealing with all the customer service people. Anyway, so I grabbed an A+ book and I was like, I need to change this, I can’t do this. So this was, I don’t even know, maybe circa 2005-ish or so. I grabbed an A+ book, I started studying it. Around the same time, it just so happened that my buddy got a job at Geek Squad and they were hiring. And I consider Geek Squad my first foray into like kind of IT, right? So I went into Geek Squad, I left GameStop, went into Geek Squad, and it was cool, right? Like we, I mean, we basically, people bring their computers in and there’s so many crazy stories that I have from that. [Laughter] But they’ll bring their computers in and they’re like, hey, I need this fixed, right? Like I remember this, not to get off too much on a tangent, but I remember this woman brought in her computer and she’s like, oh, my computer doesn’t work. And I’m like, okay. I was like, yeah, if you bring it in, that’d be great. She’s like, oh, it’s right here. But it was just a monitor. And I was like, oh, no, no, we need the tower. Like and you know, just people that don’t know at the time. And so I’ve just had some interesting interactions there. But what’s funny is from Geek Squad, they expected us to not only troubleshoot and restore machines back up, but they also wanted us to do some sales, right? Because ultimately it’s a retail giant that wants to sell products and services. I was like number one in the district for selling kind of in-home consultation services, which is funny because it brings me back to sales, right? And so I sold, they sent me out to California to tell people what my secret was and I just told them, I just talked to people and just find out what they really need. Manuel: So there’s no secret sauce, no special pitch? Erick: No, and I wouldn’t say a special pitch exactly, but it’s more of how can we alleviate you having to set all this up yourself, right? It’s like, hey, listen, we can just do this for you and this is your bill out the door and we’ll handle it all. And for the most part, you know, when you’re targeting a lot of, like, not really targeting, but just you have those that aren’t very computer savvy and they need that kind of help, they rather pay the money, right? And in my life sometimes, if the money can solve it and I could save me like a day or two of like trying to figure things out, then it’s fine. But anyway, while I was there, I met this lawyer and at the time I was trying to marry my wife and this lawyer, he, we started talking, he brought his computer in for repair and we just started chit-chatting, but he actually wanted a side guy like to do IT work with and I was like, yeah, I’m happy to like, you know, do some stuff and we started talking, so I started going over doing a little bit of side work for him here and there, but you might recognize his name. It’s Farhan Naqvi, like Naqvi, like the billboards. So yeah, like I was probably his like second employee. He had like a paralegal and him and his wife and me, we all like had this office. I was like his kind of admin guy. So during the time I was at Geek Squad, I was like partially working there as well. Manuel: So I’m assuming this is because his services, sorry, his business has grown a lot. I’m assuming this is when he was just kind of starting his name. Erick: Yep, very beginning. Very beginning. Yeah, he hadn’t even really launched too much yet and yeah, we, you know, it was cool because we kept in touch for a little while, you know, he wanted me to fix his kid’s computer, but anyway. So I was working both jobs at the time and I really wanted to get like real IT, right? Like I was doing like sys admin stuff for him. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just Googling things like I do today at work, but you know, just all that stuff and then working at Geek Squad, it was still retail even though it was like part technical. And so I started looking at other roles and there was a role for one of the major casinos which was Wynn. Manuel: ...